Transcript Medieval West in Crisis

Medieval West in Crisis
1300-1500
West in crisis
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1. Famine and Death
2. The Eastern Threat
3. War
4. Loss in Church and Society
West in crisis
• 1. Famine and Death
– 1300: 74 million people in Europe (about 500
million today)
– 1340’s: 52 million
– Two major causes: famines (1310-1347) and Black
Death (1348)
– Black Death: bubonic plague (Yersinia pestis
bacillus)? Pneumonic plague? Ebola virus?
– Travelled quickly; continued to recur in places off
and on through the 17th century
West in crisis
• 2. The Eastern Threat
– Mongol invaders and Ottoman Turks
• 1206-1258; Mongols eventually conquer Hungary
• Ottomans named for Sultan Osman I (1281-1326); lasted 600
years until 1924
• Ottoman empire lasted as dynastic network of personal and
military loyalty (not national, linguistic, ethnic)
• Ottoman mission: eliminate polytheism (including trinitarian
Christianity); Constantinople finally falls for the last time in
May 1453
• Ottoman invasion and pressure from the Turk reshaped the
eastern part of Western Europe
West in crisis
• 3. War
– Monarchies strong in the 13th c. were weaker in the
14th.
– Hundred Years’ War (1337-1453)
• Fought by English to claim territories in France
• English king inherits title “duke of Aquitaine;” therefore
vassal of French king
• French king Charles iv +1328; heir apparent is English king
Edward iii (1327-1377), who goes to war for the right to be
king of France as well
• All takes place in France; local pitched battles throughout
the more than a century (not 100 years of prolonged and
extensive warfare)
West in crisis
• 3. War
– Hundred Years’ War (1337-1453)
• Early English victories
• Agincourt 1415 (Henry v): 6000 and longbows versus 20000 and
cavalry = English victory and Henry’s claim to the throne is honored
• 1422: Henry v dies; Henry vi (infant) and French king Charles vi’s son
Charles (Dauphin) are competing claims to the throne; a new phase of
the War
• 1429 English occupy Paris and invade Orleans; Dauphin Charles is
losing when Jeanne d’Arc (1412-1431) comes to the rescue following
divine voices
• Charles vii eventually crowned (1429-1461); takes back Aquitaine;
geography by 1453 looks much like it does today
• England falls into civil war following this (War of the Roses: 14551485)
• Result: exhaustion of resources and people, continental warfare,
national split between France and England, makes England more
English
• Innovations: longbow, infantry, gunpowder = “military revolution”
West in crisis
• 4. Loss in Church and Society
– Babylonian Captivity and Great Schism
• Strong popes in 12th and 13th century; weak in the 14th
• Riots in Rome lead popes to reside in Avignon (France) 1305-1378
(Babylonian Captivity)
• The Avignon popes are politicized (vassals of French kings? Money
grubbers (kickbacks, bribes, indulgences)?
• Urban vi resides back in Rome (1378); Avignon cardinals elect their
own Avignon popes (Great Schism: 1378-1417): 4 rival popes at
one time!
• Splitting the church were political rivalries, not theological
differences
• Schism ends with the Conciliar movement (= councils); Council of
Constance (1414-1417) restores unity; councils superior to popes
West in crisis
• 4. Loss in Church and Society
– Schism results in challenges to papacy
• Criticism of sacramental rituals
• Englishman John Wycliffe (1320-1384): absolute
authority of Bible (in English instead of Latin)
• Bohemian (Czech) Jan Hus (1369-1415): offer chalice to
laity; preached against indulgences
• Pave the way for Protestant Reformation in 16th century
• Modern Devotion (imitation of Christ): Dutch Brothers
of the Common Life; Thomas à Kempis’ devotional book
West in crisis
• 4. Loss in Church and Society
– “We go to sleep as if going to our death, because
we go to our death as if going to sleep.”
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Dance of Death
Memento Mori
Last rites
Pilgrimage and purgatory
The pilgrimage in art and literature: the dream-vision
and the journey to the New Jerusalem (Dante 12651321, cf. Piers Plowman, Chaucer 1342-1400)
West in crisis
• 4. Loss in Church and Society
– Cultural tension
• Spain and the “reconquest”: 1248 Spain is essentially
free of Muslims
• Surviving Muslims (Mudejars or Moors) and Jews
systematically discriminated against
• 100000 Jews expelled and murdered in Spain 13781391
• Had been expelled from France and England; find some
refuge in Italy and Poland